Around 1 in 5 people in Wales is currently on an NHS waiting list, with more than 5,000 people waiting more than 2 years for treatment.
Behind these numbers are real people – living in pain, discomfort and anxiety. Everyone in Wales knows someone who is waiting for the treatment they need.
Plaid Cymru has a costed and targeted plan to cut waiting lists, as a first and necessary step to transforming our health and care services.
So that more people are able to see a GP when they need one, and to help reduce the burden on frontline health services, we will hire up to 100 new GPs to provide more out-of-hours care, and invest more in digitisation and telemedicine.
By ring-fencing time and resources for planned care, we will ensure that more people are treated, more quickly.
Acting on recommendations from the Royal College of Surgeons, we will create 10 new surgical hubs to speed up treatment times for procedures like hip and knee replacements, hernia operations and cataract removals – developing these into new centres of excellence for specialisms like orthopaedics and ophthalmology.
By bringing waiting lists down, we will take the most immediate pressures off the NHS – creating the space we need to invest in an integrated health and care service that guarantees better access to your dentist or GP, delivers more sustainable social care, and keeps people healthier for longer.
Including by creating a new Minister for Public Health, we will ensure that there is a greater emphasis on promoting people’s physical and mental well-being across everything the Welsh Government does.
And under Plaid Cymru, our NHS will always be free to access at the point of need.